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Dark was that day when Diesel conceived his grim engine that begot you, vile invention, more vicious, more criminal than the camera even, metallic monstrosity, bale and bane of our culture, chief woe of our Commonweal. How dare the Law prohibit hashish and heroin yet license your use, who inflate all weak inferior egos? Their addicts only do harm to their own lives: you poison the lungs of the innocent, your din dithers the peaceful, and on choked roads hundreds must daily die by chance-medley. Nimble technicians, surely you should hang your heads in shame. Your wit works mighty wonders, has landed men on the Moon, replaced brains by computers, and can smithy a "smart" bomb. It is a crying scandal that you cannot take the time or be bothered to build us, what sanity knows we need, an odorless and noiseless staid little electric brougham.

The relay at pos’n 12 is numbered 67. I have checked its operation, and twelve volts through the pins (85 & 86) does indeed make the main connection. However, there is a little rust discolouration on the relay body between pins 85 and 30 – and a matching discolouration is evident on the face of the relay board where these pins enter. I have considered shorting the relay board ‘slots’ to check the connection between the pins 30 and 87, but cannot find a ‘spade’ wide enough. But perhaps this is a red herring.

There is a relay at position 3, and its number is 32.

Fuse 18 is intact.

(For reference, the only other relays are at pos'n 4 numbered 18, a two-pin plug at pos'n 6, a relay at pos'n 8, and a single white wire leading into a connection at relay pos'n 10.)

Since my previous post, I have found:

When ignition is ‘on’, there is no power to the red/ylo supply to the riser fuel pump, and therefore also none to the fuel pump under the chassis.

When I take power and earth directly from the battery to the red/ylo supply and brown earth cable, the riser pump hums. I therefore presume it is pumping fuel.

However, I cannot hear any noise from the under-chassis pump even with the above direct power. The supply and earth wires to the under-chassis pump indicate no resistance between them, so I presume that circuit is OK. Perhaps the pump has seized, as you mentioned, following the power failure - can I check this without dismantling fuel pipes?

Even when the riser fuel pump is humming, the car will not start.

So, the system supplies no power to the two pumps, and even when power is supplied directly from the battery, it seems that no fuel is pumped to the engine.
So I have to find the cause of the power failure to the pumps, and then if they are really pumping. I’m not sure which tree to bark up!

My garage fitted two new fuel pumps to my 1989 Jetta GTI (PB engine). Good job, and it drove well. There had also been water ingress to the fuse/relay box, which they rectified. I learned a lot - for example, fuel pumps pump only on the initial turn of ignition, whilst cranking, and whilst running. Presumably a fire safety measure so fuel is not pumped to a non-running, perhaps crashed, engine.

Now she won't start, so very annoying. Even though I hear a buzz from the back as I switch on ignition. Would you confirm for me which is the fuel delivery pipe at/to the injector 'box'? I think it is the one entering from the RHS, opposite end to the air intake rubber, as I look from the front of the car. I need to be sure as I would like to start purging the pipes with air in case some dirt has been sucked up by the new pumps. There does seem to be sufficient petrol in the tank according to the gauge, but I'll top up the tank a bit before dismantling things.

Dark was that day when Diesel conceived his grim engine that begot you, vile invention, more vicious, more criminal than the camera even, metallic monstrosity, bale and bane of our culture, chief woe of our Commonweal. How dare the Law prohibit hashish and heroin yet license your use, who inflate all weak inferior egos? Their addicts only do harm to their own lives: you poison the lungs of the innocent, your din dithers the peaceful, and on choked roads hundreds must daily die by chance-medley. Nimble technicians, surely you should hang your heads in shame. Your wit works mighty wonders, has landed men on the Moon, replaced brains by computers, and can smithy a "smart" bomb. It is a crying scandal that you cannot take the time or be bothered to build us, what sanity knows we need, an odorless and noiseless staid little electric brougham.

Does the buzz from the back of the car continue with the ignition on or stop after a second?

As I turned the ignition on, there was a short half second bleep from the back. I assume it was from the lifter pump. The car did not start. I checked the pump fuse, it was OK. However, I gave the other fuses a push, and some weren't seated properly. Then, when I turned on the ignition, there was a cheering, longish buzz from the boot - I presume the lifter pump. This buzz continued for a short while after stopping cranking. But the engine still did not start.

Dark was that day when Diesel conceived his grim engine that begot you, vile invention, more vicious, more criminal than the camera even, metallic monstrosity, bale and bane of our culture, chief woe of our Commonweal. How dare the Law prohibit hashish and heroin yet license your use, who inflate all weak inferior egos? Their addicts only do harm to their own lives: you poison the lungs of the innocent, your din dithers the peaceful, and on choked roads hundreds must daily die by chance-medley. Nimble technicians, surely you should hang your heads in shame. Your wit works mighty wonders, has landed men on the Moon, replaced brains by computers, and can smithy a "smart" bomb. It is a crying scandal that you cannot take the time or be bothered to build us, what sanity knows we need, an odorless and noiseless staid little electric brougham.

You have the early fuse box and these can get corroded due to water dripping down from above through a rotted A pillar.

Yes - that is what the garage told me. They told me they had fixed it, so I presumed the fuse box was OK. I will have to look into fitting a new one. Not sure if this will exceed my abilities, but there seems to be no way around this. With two new pumps fitted, and having driven home successfully from the garage, it does seem that there is an electrical fault - intermittent - which perhaps drives one pump sometimes (hence the noise) but not the other.

I'll research how to look at this A pillar, and remove the old fuse box and fit a new one. Any tips on that would be most welcome.